From the Ashes
by Butterflygirl113
Summary: Despite all the things the Capital took, there was one thing it did not manage to steal away from her: one person.


AUTHOR'S NOTE: I apologize in advance if I get their voices wrong; I only read the series once. This story takes place pretty much at the end of the third book, so it contains spoilers for the entire series.

* * *

They lead me into a room I've never been in before and tell me to wait. I do so, simply because I have no real energy to do anything else. What else is there to do but wait? Or die? Wait for death. Wait for anything to make sense. Wait for this nightmare to end. Haymitch gives me an odd look as he leaves the room, and I don't care. Nothing matters enough to care anymore.

I hear the sound of the door clicking open, and I realize more time must have passed than I thought. I don't look up as the quiet, hesitant footsteps approach. It's probably another doctor, another psychiatrist, another guard. What does it matter?

Until he says my name.

"Katniss."

My head shoots up, not sure if I heard correctly.

' _A cruel trick, a cruel trick; I am Katniss Everdeen….'_

But it's his face staring back at me.

' _A mutt, a lie, a dream; I am seventeen years old….'_

His broken voice calls out to me again, pleading.

"Katniss."

I run to him and crush him in a hug, tears streaming down my face. I don't care that my skin is screaming, tearing, bleeding. I thought he was dead.

"Cinna, Cinna, Cinna!" I cry, holding him as tight to me as I can.

As though, if I let go, the dream will fade away and I will lose him again.

He holds me back, gently, unsurely. I look up into his eyes, and realize just what they did to my Cinna. They are haunted, distant, hesitant. Everything about him is slower and more deliberate, like a terrified animal trying to make itself trust in its safety. I see the calm control of the Cinna I knew warring to master his new wounds. And I hate the Capital anew.

I step back, looking at his face. It is swollen in places and scars crisscross his skin like roads on a map. The Capital doctors can fix those, at least on the outside, but the real scars never leave. He is far too thin, as thin as the poorest people in the districts, and his eyes rove back and forth around the room, never really looking at any one thing.

Eventually I notice him studying me too, his eyes tracing the delicate pink graft skin, the angry red burn wounds, and suddenly I realize how I must look to my former stylist.

He takes my chin in his hand gently and, sad and soft and regretful, whispers, "Katniss Everdeen, my girl on fire."

The comment catches me off guard, makes me laugh at the truth of it, but just as suddenly I am sobbing, and I find myself back in his arms.

"They killed her, Cinna," I sob.

"I know," he replies sadly.

We just stand there for a while, holding each other, comforting each other with our presence. I finally break the silence.

"I thought you were dead."

He touches the place on his head that is most swollen (an unconscious gesture) and answers, "Supposed to be."

A long pause fills the air as he appears to be grasping for words, reality, or both. I wait. I know what that is like. Finally, he seems to find them.

"When they dragged me out of the room, they took me to interrogation."

He pauses again, perhaps because the thoughts are too unpleasant. I remember the moment they dragged him away and wince, wrapping my arms around myself protectively. I had been so certain then that I would never see him again. He finds the words and continues talking.

"After a few minutes of 'warm up,' they considered me sufficiently primed for questioning. They believed I knew more about the rebellion than I did, and tried to 'convince' me to tell them. After that, I think it was just sport."

My stomach drops at the thoughts I don't want to think: thoughts that are probably worlds better than what Cinna experienced.

"Did you?" I ask, not sure why.

Perhaps I just want to stop thinking about possibilities.

He shakes his head.

"Not much. Some. I told them less; nothing useful anymore."

"Plutarch said his sources heard you were beaten to death."

He winces, touches that same spot.

"Nearly."

An uncomfortable silence stretches between us, filling the room. I find myself talking just to make it go away, to talk over the sound of unpleasant thoughts and even more unpleasant memories.

"I killed her, you know," I say. "The president of Thirteen. I was supposed to kill Snow."

I wait for the judgment, but it never comes. Instead, there is just more blank staring, like he is waiting for more information before he can decide my fate. I give the answer to him. I can imagine no other decision. I find I do not mind it. Still, perhaps because this whole situation is so surreal, I laugh bitterly and look away, crossing my arms over my chest.

"Maybe you can make my execution outfit. One last statement before they kill me. Maybe just coal this time; no more fire."

His look is strange. Sad, but for different reasons.

"Much as I valued my time as your stylist, I'm afraid you may have to find someone else to design your burial shroud."

He raises both of his hands to draw attention to them, and for the first time I really notice them. I am horrified at what they have done to my lovely, gentle Cinna. Where his face and neck are crisscrossed with scars, his hands are more scar than undamaged flesh. They have obviously been broken multiple times, and some fingers will clearly never work again. They are curled in on themselves, and I notice him noticing me staring. He tries to unfurl them and winces, only slightly succeeding.

Suddenly I realize the depth of their cruelty. They never meant to kill Cinna, at least not right away. They took his hands from him, destroyed what made the Mockingjay, and left him unable to ever use his gift the same way again. They left him broken in the way that would hurt him most. And they spread the lie that he was dead to hurt me. To break what he made. To try to clip the wings from the Mockingjay.

I touch them gently, trailing over the proof of Snow's brutality, and I hate him more than I ever thought possible. I hate them all: Snow, the guards who carried out his horrible orders, and the vapid, oblivious people of the Capital who let it happen while they lay comfortably in their beds with full stomachs. For a moment I am so overcome with rage that I feel like I am on fire again.

But Cinna extinguishes it with one mangled hand over the top of mine, and I am crying again. After a time, I let out a watery laugh. He looks at me oddly, like I really have morphed into a mockingjay, and I explain my idea.

"I could help you. Be your hands. I was supposed to have an interest in fashion anyway, right?"

He smiles at me, fond and sad and amused. A hint of my Cinna returns when he smirks at me. He brushes ruined fingers gently against my cheek, wiping away tears.

"And do what, you useless thing? You haven't got a creative bone in your body."

His words are fond and his tone grateful. I hug him again, at a loss for words. We stay that way for a while, my Cinna and I. My dearest, most trusted friend. The Capital took them all from me. I cannot look at Gale the same way again, and Peeta… dear Peeta…. I shake the thought away before I think of what will happen to him when I am gone. I cannot bear any more pain. Instead I cling to the friend who was returned to me, relishing what little time I will have in his presence. Perhaps this will be our last visit before my execution.

"They will take care of you, the doctors," I say suddenly, half-statement, half-question.

I have to make sure he will be safe.

He nods.

"They're already looking into my treatment. But I had to see you first." He smiles wryly. "I'm sure you understand."

I do.

I hug him again as two large, humorless guards come back into the room to take him from me. I tell myself to let him go, but they have to pull him from my arms. He tries to smile an encouraging smile but it doesn't sit well on his swollen face. Besides, we both know the truth. I sit down on my bed as the door closes behind him and stare into space for a while.

Cinna is alive.

They didn't take everything from me. 

* * *

When they ship me back to District Twelve, I don't see much of Cinna. He stays back in the Capital to heal and work on trying to get some of his ability back. He says the doctors are hopeful that he'll get back to about seventy percent of how he used to be, but I can tell that he believes it as much as I do.

We fall right back into our weekly phone calls. It's nice to have a friend to talk to who doesn't revere you for who you were supposed to be or lie to you with cheery messages about how everything is going to be OK. I can tell that it's the same for Cinna.

He tells me about his physical therapy and about the new team he has working for him. They are his hands, like I could never be. He tried sketching for a while but found he could no longer make the pencil obey him, so now he describes his visions, tweaks their drawings, oversees every step of the production. He says the girl who helps him is very talented and might be as good as him someday. I feel a stab of jealousy but quickly let it go. Design was never really my talent anyway.

Sometimes, he says, he tries to make the garments by himself. It's painful and laborious and slow, and he ends up frustrated far more often than he used to, but he starts to succeed again. I see a piece or two that he's made, sometimes, when they do a propo on how the victims of the Capital are slowly starting to heal and flourish despite what was done to them. Once or twice the President herself has even worn one of his creations.

I am proud of him, my Cinna, though I know he struggles. It will never come as easily to him as it used to, but the man who made the Mockingjay is too stubborn, too brave, and too strong to ever let fear or pain hold him back.

He visits, sometimes, when he's not too busy, and exclaims over how big and beautiful little Prim and Finn have gotten. I say I was thinking of naming Finn after him, and he gives me a mock glare and declares that he would have never forgiven me if I did. But I see the fondness in his eyes, and know this touches him. What I don't tell him is that it is only partially true. Finn is named after him: his middle name. I see my children and I see a future that never would have existed without their namesakes. I wish the others could be here to see them too. Prim especially. But at least I have Cinna. Despite all the things the Capital took, despite all the things they tried to take, they have not robbed me of everything. And with the little scraps I have remaining, I have built a life. A good life, if a broken one. But when we all support each other, we get by.

And sometimes that's more than enough.


End file.
